CHAPTER 7

For one stupid second, my brain decided to focus on the wrong things.

The chipped paint on my doorframe. The crooked chain lock still stretched between me and Mace Calder. Nicole’s pink-handled bat lifted beside my shoulder. The soft hum of my refrigerator behind me like this was any normal morning and not the beginning of some horror-movie bullshit.

At the end of the hallway, the three men stepped away from the elevator.

Slow.

Calm.

Like they had all the time in the world.

Mace’s voice dropped. “Open the door.”

I looked at him through the gap. “You just told me to run.”

“And now I’m telling you to open the door before they do.”

The man in front smiled wider.

Nicole muttered, “I hate when the giant has a point.”

She snapped the chain free before I could argue. Mace moved so fast the door barely opened before he was through it, broad body filling the entryway, one hand disappearing beneath his coat.

A gun came out.

Not from Mace.

From the smiling man.

My breath caught.

The weapon was sleek and black, the kind that didn’t belong in an apartment hallway with bad carpeting and nosy neighbors. The man aimed it at Mace first, then shifted it toward me.

“Step aside, Calder,” he said. “We only need the nurse.”

Something inside me went cold.

Not fear exactly.

Recognition.

They knew me.

Not my face from a hospital badge. Not my name from some hacked record. They knew what I had done before I even understood it myself.

Mace’s shoulders squared. “You’re in the wrong territory.”

The second man laughed. “This city belongs to anyone brave enough to take from it.”

“That bravery,” Mace said, “is going to get you buried.”

Nicole leaned close to my ear. “Is it wrong that I kind of believe him?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Still hot.”

“Nicole.”

“What? Terror sharpens observation.”

The gunman’s gaze flicked to her. “Move the blonde too.”

Nicole smiled like he had just handed her a gift-wrapped excuse. “Try it.”

Mace didn’t look back at us. “Bedroom. Window. Fire escape.”

“I’m not climbing out my own damn window because three discount assassins—”

The gun fired.

The sound was muffled but still punched through the hall. Drywall burst near the doorframe, white dust spraying across my cheek.

Nicole grabbed my scrub top and yanked me backward.

Mace became violence.

There was no better word for it. One second he stood in my doorway; the next he was on the gunman, wrist twisted, elbow driven up, body turning with brutal precision. Bone cracked. The gun hit the floor and skidded across my entry tile.

The second man came at him with a knife.

Not a pocketknife. Not kitchen steel. A long, wicked blade that flashed as he slashed across Mace’s shoulder.

Mace hissed.

Actually hissed.

A raw, furious sound that raised every hair on my arms.

The cut should have slowed him down.

It didn’t.

He slammed his attacker into the wall hard enough to rattle Mrs. Alvarez’s framed wreath two doors down. The man dropped, gasping.

The third one lunged for me.

Nicole swung Jeffrey with both hands.

The bat connected with his knee with a crack that made even my nurse instincts wince.

He roared and went down hard.

“Jeffrey says hello, asshole,” she snapped.

The first man staggered upright again, wrist hanging wrong, eyes locked on me. “She signed. She belongs in judgment.”

That word scraped down my spine.

Belongs.

No.

Absolutely the fuck not.

I grabbed the nearest thing on the side table—my ceramic plant pot with the mostly dead pothos I kept pretending would recover—and threw it at his face.

It hit his temple with a satisfying thunk.

Soil exploded everywhere.

The man cursed and stumbled.

“My plant was already suffering,” I said. “Don’t make it personal.”

Nicole stared at me for half a breath. “I love you.”

Mace grabbed the gun from the floor, ejected something from it with practiced ease, then shoved it into his coat. “Move. Now.”

I looked at the man on the floor clutching his knee. Blood seeped through his pants. He groaned, face twisted.

My body did what it had been trained to do.

I took one step toward him.

Mace caught my arm. Not hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to stop me.

“No.”

“He’s bleeding.”

“He came here to take you.”

“I noticed, but unless the rule book changed overnight, I’m still not cheering for preventable blood loss in my hallway.”

Mace’s eyes sharpened. “He’ll live.”

“And you know that how?”

The answer was in his silence.

I hated that silence.

Nicole shoved my sneakers against my legs. “Argue while moving.”

Mace looked at her once. “For once, she’s correct.”

“For once?” Nicole said. “I’ve been correct since birth.”

We didn’t go through the hallway. Mace pushed us toward my bedroom, checked the window, then forced it open like the swollen frame meant nothing. The fire escape creaked when he climbed through first.

I looked down.

Three floors.

Rusty metal.

A dumpster underneath that smelled like death and regret.

“Nope.”

Nicole was already halfway out. “Come on.”

“I am short, tired, and not built for urban mountaineering.”

“Deena.”

Another sound came from the living room. A groan. A thud.

Someone moving.

Fine.

Death by fire escape it was.

I climbed out, muttering every curse word I knew and inventing two new ones on the way down. Mace moved below us, one hand always near a weapon, eyes scanning the alley like he expected the bricks to grow teeth.

By the time my feet hit the ground, my heart was hammering hard enough to bruise my ribs.

Mace pointed toward a black SUV parked half a block down.

I stopped dead.

Nicole bumped into me. “Why are we stopping?”

“I am not getting into another black SUV today.”

“It’s mine,” Mace said.

“That doesn’t make it better.”

“You prefer the men upstairs?”

I glanced toward my window.

A shadow moved behind the glass.

“Fine,” I snapped. “But if this is a kidnapping, I’m going to be deeply annoying.”

Nicole opened the rear door. “She undersold that. She’ll be a nightmare.”

Mace almost looked like he regretted every career choice that had led him to my alley.

Good.

The SUV smelled like leather, cold air, and expensive danger. Nicole climbed in beside me, still clutching Jeffrey. Mace slid behind the wheel, pulled away from the curb, and drove like traffic laws were polite suggestions written by weaker men.

I braced a hand against the seat. “Where are you taking us?”

“Somewhere secure.”

“That is how kidnappers phrase things.”

“Kidnappers don’t usually save you first.”

Nicole lifted her finger. “Actually, some do. True crime is complicated.”

Mace’s jaw flexed.

A dark stain spread across the shoulder of his coat.

My nurse brain locked onto it. “You’re bleeding.”

“No.”

I stared at the blood soaking into black fabric. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“That wasn’t me asking if you were confident. It was me pointing out that your shoulder is leaking.”

Nicole leaned forward. “Is that from the fancy murder knife?”

Mace didn’t answer.

I reached over the seat. “Let me see.”

“Sit back.”

“Let me see the wound.”

“Miss Williams—”

“Deena,” I snapped. “If someone bleeds on my behalf, they can use my first name.”

His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror.

There was something unnerving in them now. Not just brown. Too focused. Too aware. Like an animal watching from behind human skin.

Then he looked away. “It was silver.”

Nicole blinked. “Like… the metal?”

“No,” I said. “Like the crayon. Yes, the metal.”

Mace’s mouth tightened.

“What does silver do?” I asked.

“Complicates things.”

“That’s not a medical term.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting until we reach the estate.”

“The estate.” I laughed, dry and humorless. “Of course there’s an estate.”

Mace tapped something near his ear. “I have her.”

A pause.

“And the friend.”

Nicole’s eyes widened. She mouthed, The friend?

I mouthed back, I know.

Mace’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “There was no choice.”

Another pause.

His expression hardened. “They were at her apartment.”

My wrist started to burn.

Soft at first.

Then deep.

I leaned forward before I thought better of it. “Is that Xavier?”

Mace ignored me.

Wrong move.

I reached between the seats and snatched the phone from where it sat in the cup holder, connected to the call. Mace’s hand shot out, but I was faster than he expected.

Being small had benefits. People underestimated your reach.

I hit speaker.

A voice filled the SUV.

Low. Controlled. Cold enough to frost glass.

“Miss Williams.”

My stomach dropped in a way I did not appreciate.

The voice matched the eyes I remembered from room 412. The blood. The warning. The impossible strength in his hand around my wrist.

Xavier Evers.

Alive.

Very much not a hallucination.

“Xavier,” I said. “Or do you prefer John Doe?”

Silence.

Nicole covered her mouth badly.

Mace looked like he was seconds from driving us into a wall on purpose.

“You should not have returned to the hospital,” Xavier said.

“You should not have vanished from my ICU like a dick in the night. Yet here we are.”

A sound came through the line.

Not quite a laugh.

Not warm enough.

But something.

“You are in danger,” he said.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious. I picked that up around the time drywall exploded beside my head.”

“Calder is taking you to my estate.”

“No, Calder is driving without my consent while bleeding on his own upholstery.”

“Deena—”

My name in his mouth did something strange to the air inside the SUV.

I hated that too.

Not because it was ugly.

Because it wasn’t.

It slid under my skin, familiar and foreign at the same time, brushing against that burning mark on my wrist like a finger.

I curled my hand into a fist. “Don’t use my first name like you know me.”

“I know enough to know you must come here.”

“You don’t know shit about me.”

Another silence.

This one stretched.

When he spoke again, his voice had lost a fraction of its ice. “I know you saved my life.”

That landed harder than it should have.

I looked out the window, watching the city blur by in gray concrete and flashing brake lights.

“Yes,” I said. “I did. And since then, my patient disappeared, my name got dragged through fake security logs, someone threatened me, and three men showed up at my apartment ready to turn my hallway into a crime scene. So if you want me at your estate, you’re going to start answering questions.”

“You will have answers.”

“Now.”

“Not over the phone.”

“How convenient.”

“Necessary.”

Nicole leaned toward the speaker. “Hi, Xavier. Nicole Hart. Best friend, witness, future pain in your royal ass. I’m coming too.”

“No,” he said immediately.

Nicole smiled sweetly. “Cute.”

I said, “Then I’m not coming.”

Mace made a low sound from the front seat.

I ignored him.

Xavier’s voice sharpened. “This is not a negotiation.”

“That is exactly what men say when they’re losing one.”

“You do not understand what is hunting you.”

“And you don’t understand that I don’t abandon my people. Nicole comes, or Mace can pull over and you can require my presence from a distance.”

The line went so quiet I could hear the faint hiss of the connection.

Then Xavier said, “She comes.”

Nicole mouthed, Damn right.

“But,” Xavier continued, “she follows security protocols.”

Nicole leaned closer. “Tell His Majesty I said I’ll follow instructions when they stop sounding stupid.”

“I heard her,” Xavier said.

Nicole froze.

I looked at her.

She looked delighted and horrified at the same time.

Mace turned onto a narrow side street. “Route?”

“Not the bridge,” Xavier said. “Take Nineteen. There are two cars behind you.”

My pulse jumped.

Mace’s eyes cut to the mirror.

I twisted around.

Two vehicles had turned when we turned. One gray sedan. One black truck. Both too steady. Too patient.

Nicole clutched Jeffrey tighter. “I miss when my biggest problem was work email.”

Xavier’s voice dropped. “Calder.”

“I see them.”

“Get her home.”

Home.

Something about that word made my wrist flare.

I sucked in a breath.

Xavier heard it. “Deena?”

The concern in his voice was fast. Immediate. Unplanned.

That scared me more than the coldness.

I shoved the phone toward Mace. “Drive.”

Mace took it, ended the call, and accelerated.

The city thinned around us. Buildings gave way to wider roads, then trees, then long stretches of wet asphalt bordered by thick woods. The cars behind us stayed there for ten miles before Mace made a turn so sharp Nicole cursed and grabbed my arm.

A narrow private road appeared between the trees.

No street sign.

No houses.

Just darkness beneath branches and a wrought-iron gate far ahead.

The vehicles behind us slowed at the mouth of the road.

They did not follow.

Mace exhaled for the first time since we’d left my apartment.

Nicole noticed. “That’s either comforting or deeply concerning.”

“Both,” he said.

The gate came closer.

Huge iron bars. Stone pillars. A crest worked into the center—sharp lines, old symbols, a crescent shape wrapped around something that looked like a blade or a claw.

My breath stopped.

Under my scrub top, my grandmother’s necklace grew warm against my chest.

I pulled it out with trembling fingers.

Same crescent.

Same blade.

Same impossible shape.

Mace hit the brakes so hard my seat belt locked.

He turned slowly, his eyes fixed on the necklace in my hand.

His voice changed completely.

“Where did you get that?”

Before I could answer, a howl rose from the woods—low, savage, and far too close.

The gate began to open on its own.